There is no technical difference.
The main reason I choose to avoid 192.168 like the plague is that every piece of SOHO equipment comes out of the box using it; often, using 192.168.0/24, which means that many company networks that have grown from small installations using this equipment are still using that address range.
Sooner or later, every RFC1918-addressed network I've ever run ends up needing to peer (via VPN) with some other RFC1918-addressed network. If there's no overlap, it make the whole job much easier; 172.16 networks have the least chance of overlapping, simply because so few people choose to use that space. 10. is next best, though don't run with a /8 netmask unless you know for a fact that it's a good idea (hint: it never is).
Edit: Kossel, I don't entirely understand your comment. If you mean "can I use 192.168 for the desktops but NAT it all to 172.16 for VPN purposes", that's exactly the sort of headaches us old-timers are grumbling about in the comments. It's much better if your office network doesn't overlap with the network you're trying to VPN to. Usually you don't control the addressing on the remote network, it belongs to some business partner or outsourced provider, who will have often picked 192.168 for their network. So I find the chances of avoiding overlap are maximised when I'm using 172.16 on my desktops.